I was wondering if anyone has looked into this new free version of Kaspersky?How does it compare? I'd like to see a site like AVcomparatives look into how it does...The paid version of Kaspersky seems to have pretty good detection rates, with low false positives. I wonder if the free version matches up well.

I've been a long-time Kaspersky user, and was made aware of this free version in the past week. I will toss it on a few PCs that I built for sale - I have nothing to hide, so if it phones home, no big deal. What vendor doesn't collect data about you in some way, shape or form ??

Between Google and Amazon, they know everything about you, including what type of furry pr0n you are into. But nobody even thinks twice about using their sites.

Got news for you... "pr0n" (and all of its variants, such as "pr()n", etc) is a thing, and has been for at least 10 years now. Surely by now, the word shows up in access reports just as if the original were typed.

As to the question of being "phoned home on" by Kaspersky, is it really something to worry about? Indeed, I'd think that by now some smart user would have learned if this software had any ulterior motives.

Got news for you... "pr0n" (and all of its variants, such as "pr()n", etc) is a thing, and has been for at least 10 years now. Surely by now, the word shows up in access reports just as if the original were typed.

Regardless of this, these euphemisms seems to have entered general usage.

BIF wrote:

As to the question of being "phoned home on" by Kaspersky, is it really something to worry about? Indeed, I'd think that by now some smart user would have learned if this software had any ulterior motives.

Just because it doesn't phone home or install a back door today is no guarantee it won't after the next update. At the end of the day, who would you be less comfortable with rummaging around the contents of your PC -- the NSA or the FSB?

Just because it doesn't phone home or install a back door today is no guarantee it won't after the next update. At the end of the day, who would you be less comfortable with rummaging around the contents of your PC -- the NSA or the FSB?

While I don't trust either of them, I'm more worried about the one with de facto jurisdiction to send black helicopters to disappear my whole town if it's politically expedient. So, being US based as I am, I'd go with Kaspersky if it came down to it. I'm more of a MBAM guy though. It's less invasive and better suited for the more social-enginerring type of malware that's prevalent these days.

Just because it doesn't phone home or install a back door today is no guarantee it won't after the next update. At the end of the day, who would you be less comfortable with rummaging around the contents of your PC -- the NSA or the FSB?

Gotta figure that if you ever make any Russian enemies, the FSB will quietly leave something there that wakes up the NSA.

Try Bitdefender Free, it's just as good as an antivirus (that's all it is is an antivirus, none of the other features are included) and it's not trialware that will expire on you and force you to upgrade.